a valuable member of the literary fraternity, and to have done perhaps more than any man to introduce a spirit of curiosity respecting our early poets, and of critical exactness in editing their remains.

The trifling works which he printed before he became settled in London need not be particularised. The first work which brought him into any notice was his 'Observations on the three first volumes of the History of English Poetry,' in a familiar letter to the author (Warton), 4to, 1782. This was the first serious attempt to call the attention of the public to the many inaccuracies and faults of that celebrated work; a bold and useful service, but dangerous to him who undertook it, as Warton had many and powerful friends, who could not bear to see him so roughly handled, even though they could not deny that almost every one of Ritson's strictures was just. However it must be owned that Ritson addressed himself to the work in a very unamiable spirit, and wrote like a man who was not much accustomed to the intercourse of refined society. The work has become, perhaps justly, a bye-word when men would speak of critical abuse. In the next year he published some 'Remarks on the Commentators on Shakspere,' which is to be distinguished from a larger work published by him in 1792, entitled 'Cursory Criticisms on the Edition of Shakspere published by Edmund Malone.' In 1783 he also published A Select Collection of English Songs, with an Historical Essay on the Origin and Progress of National Song,' of which a second edition was published by Mr. Park in 1813. In 1790 appeared his volume of Ancient Songs, from the time of King Henry III. to the Revolution,' reprinted in 1829. This is regarded as one of the most valuable of his works. In 1791 he published Pieces of Ancient Popular Poetry,' from authentic manuscripts and old printed copies; in 1793, The English Anthology,' in three volumes; in 1794, a 'Collection of Scottish Songs,' and in 1795, the very remarkable poems of a forgotten poet, Minot, on events in the reign of Edward III., which have also been reprinted. In the same year he published his large collection of ballads on the exploits of Robin Hood,' with much prefatory matter, in which he cannot be said to appear to any great advantage. In 1802 he produced two works in this department of literature: the one, Ancient English Metrical Romances,' in 3 vols. 8vo; the other, Bibliographia Poetica,' a catalogue of English poets of the 12th, 13th, 14th, 15th, and 16th centuries, with a short account of their writings, a work very imperfect, but to which succeeding writers in this department have been greatly indebted.

To enumerate however all the works produced by Mr. Ritson in his twenty years' literary career would carry out this article to an unreasonable extent. It may be sufficient to add that there are several small works of his under the denomination of Garlands, as the 'Bishopric Garland,' the Yorkshire Garland,' the Northumberland Garland,' and 'Gammer Gurton's Garland;' and also several tracts relating to his profession, and especially to the court with which he was more particularly connected. In 1802 he published 'An Essay on Abstinence from Animal Food as a Moral Duty.'

He died 3rd September 1803. Several tracts have appeared attributed to him, and a collection of his correspondence has been published. Some account of his life was published by Mr. Hazlewood in 1824. He had through life the reputation of a surly critic, which his attack on Warton first gained for him, and he was more shunned than courted by his literary contemporaries.

(Life and Letters of Joseph Ritson, Esq., by Sir Harris Nicolas.) RITTENHOUSE, DAVID, was born on the 8th of April 1732, near Germantown in Pennsylvania. His father, who was a small farmer in that province, intended that he should follow the practice of husbandry, and gave him but little education. But young Rittenhouse, before he was seventeen years of age, displayed a taste for mechanical and mathematical subjects; without books or instructors, he is said to have executed a wooden clock, and, similarly to what is related of Pascal, to have covered the ploughs and fences on his father's farm with geometrical figures. This exhibition of uncommon talent, joined to a conviction on the part of the elder Rittenhouse that the delicacy of his son's constitution would render him unfit for the labour of cultivating the ground, induced the father to procure for the youth the tools of a watch and mathematical instrument maker, and to dispense with his services in performing the duties of the farm. Grateful for this favour, the young man worked diligently with his hands during the day, and at night devoted a portion of the time which should have been passed in taking repose, to the prosecution of his studies. His success appears to have been extraordinarily great, for his biographers assert that, before the age of twenty, he was able to read the 'Principia,' and that he had discovered the method of fluxions, without being aware that this had been already done by Newton and Leibnitz. He also constructed two orreries exhibiting the movements of the planets and their satellites. These machines are said to be still in existence, one in the university of Pennsylvania, and the other in the college of Princeton.

In 1769, Mr. Rittenhouse was made one of a Committee appointed by the American Philosophical Society to observe the transit of Venus which was to take place in that year, and he was so fortunate as to witness the phenomenon in a temporary observatory which he built for the purpose. His observation and the calculations relating to it gained for him the approbation of the astronomers of Europe, and the title of Doctor in Laws was subsequently conferred on him. In

1779 he was named one of the commissioners for adjusting a territorial dispute between the states of Pennsylvania and Virginia; in 1786 he was employed in fixing the line which separates Pennsylvania from the state of New York, and in the following year he assisted in deter mining the boundary between New York and Massachusetts.

Dr. Rittenhouse was elected a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences at Boston in 1782, and of the Royal Society of London in 1795. In 1791 he succeeded Dr. Franklin as president of the American Philosophical Society, to whose 'Transactions' he contributed many papers, chiefly on astronomical subjects. In 1777 he was appointed treasurer of Pennsylvania, and this important office he held with incorruptible integrity till his resignation of it in 1789. In 1792 he received his last appointment, which was that of director of the mint of the United States. In this post his mechanical skill is said to have been highly useful; but in 1795 he was obliged to resign it from bad health, and, after a short but painful illness, he died on the 26th of June 1796.

RITTER, KARL, the great improver and promoter of the science of physical and comparative geography, was born on August 7, 1779, at Quedlinburg, about thirty miles south-west from Halle in Prussian Saxony. After receiving his early education at the institute of Schnepfenthal, he proceeded to the University of Halle, whence, in 1798, he went to Frankfurt-am-Main as tutor in the family of Count Bethmann-Hollweg. He accompanied his pupils to the university and upon their travels, visiting with them Switzerland, Piedmont, France, and Italy. In 1807 he published, in two volumes, his Europa; ein geographisch-historisch-statistisches Gemälde' (picture). In 1817-18 the first edition of his most important work was published in two volumes, Die Erdkunde im Verhältniss zur Natur und zur Geschichte des Menschen, oder Allgemeine vergleichende Geographie als sichere Grundlage des Studiums und Unterrichts in physikalischen und historischen Wissenschaften (Geography in relation to the character and history of mankind, or universal comparative geography as a foundation for study and instruction in the physical and historical sciences'). After its publication he was appointed, in 1819, teacher of history in the gymnasium of Frankfurtam-Main, and in the following year professor-extraordinary of geography in the university of Berlin. His attention to his favourite study was now more undivided. In 1820 appeared Vorhalle europäischer Völkergeschichten vor Herodot' (Portico of a history of the European peoples before Herodotus'); and in 1821 the first portion of a second edition of his Erdkunde,' upon a greatly enlarged scale. This first portion included Africa, in one volume; the next eleven, issued between 1832 and 1846 are devoted to Asia in the following divisions: Northern and North-eastern Asia; North-eastern and Southern of Upper Asia; South-eastern of Upper Asia; India, in two volumes; the countries between Eastern and Western Asia; Western Asia-Iran, in two volumes; the terrace-lands of the Euphrates and Tigris river-system; and Arabia. We may add that Herr Ritter also wrote the article 'Asia' for the 'Penny Cyclopædia ' in 1834, and in conjunction with Major von Oetzel constructed an excellent atlas of Asia. During this period his official duties were also increased; he was appointed teacher of statistics in the Military Academy, member of the examination-commission and director of the studies of the Royal Cadet Institute, and was also chosen a member of the Academy, and in February 1848 he was elected a foreign member of the Royal Society of London. His other works have been 'Die Stupas, oder die architectonischen Denkmale aus der Indo-Baktrischen Königstrasse (The Topes, or architectural monuments of the Indo-Bactrian Highways') published in 1838; Die Colonisation von Neu-Seeland,' with a map, in 1842; Ein Blick in das Nilquellenland' ('A glance at the sources of the Nile') in 1844; 'Der Jordan, und die Beschiffung des Todten Meeres' (The Jordan, and the navigation of the Dead Sea') in 1850; Über räumliche Anordnungen auf der Ausseits des Erdballs und ihre Functionen in Entwicklungsgange der Geschichte' (On the arrangements in space exterior to the terrestrial globe, and their functions in the progressive development of history'), in the same year; 'Ein Blick auf Palästine und seine christliche Bevolkerung' (‘A glance at Palestine and its Christian population') in 1852; and 'Einleitung zur allgemeinen vergleichenden Geographie, und Abhandlungen zur Begründung eine mehr wissenschaftlichen Behandlung der Erdkunde' (An introduction to universal comparative geography, with essays on the founding of a more scientific treatment of geography') in the same year. Ritter has also written introductions and prefaces to the following works: Das Buch des Landes, von Schech Ebu Ishak el Farsi el Isztracki,' 1844; to Blom's Das Königreich Norwegen statistisch beschreiben,' 1845; to Tam's 'Portuguesische Besitzungen in Sud-West Afrika,' in 1845; to Borbstadt's Allgemeine geographische und statische Verhältnisse in graphische Darstellung,' with 38 plates, in 1846; to Hoffmeister's Briefe aus Indien,' including travels in Ceylon and continental India, Nepaul, and the Himalayas, a part of which-travels in Ceylon-has been translated into English, in 1847; to a German translation of Diaz del Castillo's 'Die Entdeckung und Eroberung von Mexico,' in 1848; and in the same year to Werne's Expedition to discover the Source of the White Nile,' which has been published in English. [SUPPLEMENT.]

RIZI, DON FRANCISCO, a distinguished Spanish painter, was born at Madrid in 1608. He was the pupil of Vincenzo Carduccio,

and had an extraordinary readiness of invention and execution, but was at the same time, as is usual in such cases, superficial and incorrect; still his readiness to design and facility to execute ensured him a brilliant career. In 1656 he was appointed principal painter to Philip IV.; and he held the same place under Charles II., who gave him the additional place of deputy keeper of the royal keys. He had however previously been appointed (1653) painter to the cathedral of Toledo, a post often in Spain more important than that of painter to the king, for he has the charge of all existing works in the cathedral, and generally the execution of all new works, which in Spanish cathedrals were at one time numerous and important. Francisco Rizi is one of the painters to whom the decline of painting in Spain is attributed, through the mere superficial attractions of his works; and he is said also, by his capricious decorations of the theatre of Buenretiro, to have done equal injury to the architectural taste of the period. Rizi's last work was a sketch for the great altar piece of the Retablo de la Santa Forina in the Sacristy of the Escorial, which Charles H. ordered for the veil of the magnificent tabernacle and altar, which Rizi had also assisted in making, to contain the Host (La Santa Forma). The subject was the ceremony of the Collocation of the Host by Charles II. in 1684; but Rizi died the following year at the Escorial, having only executed the sketch. The picture was painted by Coello from a sketch of his own, and it is one of the finest pictures in Spain. [COELLO, CLAUDIO.] This Host, or Santa Forma Incorrupta, is the miraculous wafer which bled at Gorkum in 1525 when trampled on by the followers of Zwingli. Rudolf II., emperor of Germany, gave it to Philip II. of Spain, whither it was transported in 1592, and in 1684 Charles II. constructed the present gorgeous altar and taber nacle for its reception, and the present altar-piece is the ceremony of its collocation. When the Forma is exhibited for adoration, the picture, which forms a veil, is let down, and is accordingly much injured. The French, under La Houssaye, who pillaged the Escorial in 1803, carried off all the gold and silver of this altar: the monks hid the 'wafer' in a cellar, and it was restored with great pomp by Ferdinand VII. in 1814.

The pictures (both frescoes and in oil) by Rizi are very numerous: there are several in the Museo of the Prado at Madrid, and many in the churches of Madrid and Toledo, especially in the cathedral of Toledo.

FRAY JUAN RIZI, Francisco's elder brother, born at Madrid in 1595, was also an eminent painter. His principal works are in the Beuedictine Monastery of San Martin at Madrid. His design was more correct than his brother's, and his pictures are distinguished for force of light and shade. He retired to Rome, and joined the Benedictines of Monte Casino. He was, while in Italy, made an archbishop, in 1675, by the pope Clement X., but he died in the same year at Monte Casino before entering upon the duties of his office.

(Cean Bermudez, Diccionario Historico, &c.; Ford, Guide for Travellers in Spain, &c.)

*RIZO RANGABÉ, and RHIZOS RHANGAVIS, ALEXANDROS, are two different ways of writing the name of a Greek author, Aλeçavopus Picos Paykaßns, who is the present minister of Foreign Affairs at Athens, and one of the finest living poets, dramatists, and orators of Greece. The date of his birth was probably about the year 1810. His father, Jacovos Rizo Rangabé, was the translator of some French plays into Romaic. In a volume of Various Poems' (Alapopa Пonuara), which appeared at Athens in 1837, and in a second which appeared in 1840, the son aspired to revive the original drama of his country, and his tragedies of Phrosyne,' and 'H Пapauorn, or "The Eve,' are, especially the latter, rich in passages of beauty and spirit. In 'Phrosyne,' the leading personage is Ali Pasha of Janina, and the principal incident is the destruction by his order of the beloved of his son, Mouktar Pasha; in 'The Eve' an unsuccessful insurrection of the Greeks against the Turks constitutes the main action. Among the shorter poems are translations from the ancient into the modern Greek of the first act of the 'Phoenisse' of Euripides, and the first book of the Odyssey' of Homer. The 'Odyssey,' which is rendered into hexameters, affords an admirable opportunity of comparing the Greek of our own days with the Greek of nearly three thousand years ago. The volumes also contain poetical compositions by the author in French and German, many of them translations from the Greek of his friend the poet Panagiotes Soutzo. His 'Marriage of Kutrulis,' an Aristophanic comedy, published in 1845, under the assumed name of Christophanos Neologides, was very successful, and has been translated into German by Sanders. Another volume of tragedies from his pen appeared at Athens in 1851. His prose works are chiefly of an historical and antiquarian character. In 1840, by the desire of the Greek government, he executed a translation from the English of Goldsmith's History of Greece,' which was introduced by authority into all the schools-an honour doubtless little anticipated by Goldsmith when he was compiling the work for the booksellers to meet the exigencies of the day that was passing over him. In a second edition, which was published in 1844, Rangabé introduced considerable alterations, and took occasion to re-establish from the original historians the actual wording of sayings that were uttered by the heroes of Grecian history. In 1842 appeared at Athens the first volume of a work in French by Rangabé, Antiquités Helléniques' ('Hellenic Antiquities, or a Repertory of Inscriptions and other Antiquities discovered since

the emancipation of Greece'), which is dedicated to Professor Thiersch, as a tribute from "an old pupil." Of this very important work no second volume seems to have yet appeared. Rangabé also took a part in the preparation of a French and Greek dictionary (Athens, 1842), and was one of the editors of the Euponaikos Epaviorηs, or 'European Contributor,' a Greek magazine, founded at Athens in 1840, which consiste 1 of original articles and translations from the leading periodicals of Europe, the Revue des deux Mondes,' 'Blackwood's Magazine,' &c. Rangabé afterwards became secretary of the Archæological Society of Athens, and a professor at the university founded by King Otho. While holding that appointment he paid a visit to England in 1850, to receive contributions of books for the university library, and he was accompanied on that occasion by Madame Rangabé, who is a Scottish lady, the sister of George Finlay of Athens, the author of several valuable works on the history of Greece. After his return his name appeared before the public as the discoverer of some ancient statues in a temple of Juno at Argos. For some years he had held subordinate posts in the government, but his political career did not assume importance till 1856. In that year, when the relations between Greece and the western powers were on an uneasy footing, in consequence of the leaning which Greece had shown to Russia during the war, the death of General Fabvier, a French officer who had made himself conspicuous in the war of the Greek insurrection, by the part he had taken in the defence of the Acropolis of Athens, afforded the Athenian municipal council an opportunity of taking a step towards the assuaging of angry feelings. It resolved that a funeral oration in his honour should be pronounced in the Acropolis, and appointed Professor Rangabé, to pronounce it. The oration which was translated in the French papers, was found so efficient for its object that Rangabé was shortly afterwards named Minister of Foreign Affairs. In that capacity, on the 20th of April 1856, he signed a treaty with Turkey for the mutual suppression of brigandage on the frontiers, and he afterwards successfully defended it in the chambers. By two circulars in June and September he invited the assistance of foreign capital for the construction of roads and harbours in Greece. The last occasion on which his name has appeared in public has been in March 1857, on his bearing public testimony, on the evacuation of Greece by the western powers, to the good conduct of their troops during the period of occupation. RIZZIO. [MARY STUART.]

ROBERT, King of France, was elected king on the death of his brother Eudes, by that party of the French who rejected the claims of Charles le Simple. [CHARLES III.] He was recognised as king in an assembly of his partisans, held at Soissons in 922, and consecrated in the church of St. Remi, at Reims, by the Archbishop of Sens. He fell in battle against his competitor, Charles le Simple, near Soissons, on the 15th of June 923, having reigned scarcely a year. He was grandfather to Hugues Capet, founder of the third or Capetian race of French kings.

ROBERT, King of France, surnamed 'le Sage' (the wise), and 'le Dévot' (the devout), was the son of Hagues Capet, whom he succeeded on the throne in 996. He was born about 970, and had been twice crowned in the lifetime of his father-at Orléans in 988, and at Reims in 991. The character of Robert was devoid of shining qualities, but he was a prince of upright and peaceable disposition. Early in his reign France was afflicted by a scarcity of four years' continuance, arising from the failure of the harvests, and the scarcity was followed by a pestilence, which again appeared in 1010, and a third time in 1030-33. These calamities are said to have reduced the population of France a third.

Robert was early embroiled with the church; he had married in 995 Berthe or Bertha, widow of Eudes, Count of Blois, but there were some difficulties as to the lawfulness of the marriage, for which Pope Gregory V. refused a dispensation, and declared the marriage void. The king refused obedience, in consequence of which he was excommunicated; and it is said that under this terrible sentence his palace was deserted by all except two menials, who after every meal purified by fire the utensils employed at the royal table, Robert at length yielded; he put away Bertha in 998, and married Constance, daughter of the Count of Toulouse, an imperious and vindictive woman, but one of the greatest beauties of her time. Robert and Constance may be compared in point of character to Henry VI. of England and his consort Margaret of Anjou.

In 1002, Robert engaged in a war to secure the succession of the duchy of Bourgogne, of which he was lawful heir; and, being supported by Richard, duke of Normandy, succeeded, after a struggle of thirteen years (1002-15), in gaining possession of it. He bestowed it on his son Henry. In 1006 he marched to the assistance of the Count of Flanders, one of his great vassals, attacked by the Emperor Henry II., who was obliged to retire. Peace was concluded next year between the two princes.

Robert possessed a taste for music, and, prompted by this, as well as his devotional temper, frequently led the choir of St. Denis, and composed hymns for monastic use. He is charged with lavishing his treasure upon mendicants, conniving at thefts from his own person, and truckling to the fierce and cruel temper of his queen, who presumed so far on his tameness as to procure his favourite, Hugues de Beauvais, to be murdered in his presence. Robert visited all the

shrines in France, and went to Rome in 1019 to visit the tombs of the Apostles; perhaps also, as some have supposed, with the view of inducing the pope to annul his marriage with Constance, and to sanction his reunion with his first wife, Bertha. He persecuted the Jews, and procured, in a council held in 1022, at Orléans, the condemnation of some priests charged with heresy, which was described as 'Gnosticism,' or 'Manicheism, but the true character of which it is not easy now to ascertain. They were brought to the stake at Orléans, and Constance, with characteristic ferocity, struck out the eye of one of the sufferers, formerly her own confessor, as he passed her in the way to execution. However Robert may have been led astray by the superstitious and persecuting spirit of the age, his moderation and love of peace were exemplary. He mediated between the Duke of Normandy and the Count of Chartres, who were engaged in hostilities, and obtained the confidence of the Emperor Henry II., who visited him in his camp in 1023. On the death of this emperor he refused, both for himself and his son, the crown of Italy, which was offered him by the malcontents of that country.

His eldest son, Hugues, to whom he had given the title of king in 1022, provoked by the cruelty of his mother, broke out into rebellion, but being taken and delivered up to the king, was pardoned. Hugues died however soon after (1026). Henry, his next son, was then associated with him in the royal title, in spite of the endeavours of Constance, who espoused the interest of Robert, the third son. Robert took up arms against his father, but his rebellion was suppressed. Shortly after quiet was restored King Robert died at Melun, in 1031, sincerely regretted, as it appears, by his subjects. He was

buried at St. Denis.

ROBERT I., King of Scotland. [BRUCE, ROBERT.] ROBERT II., King of Scotland, the first of the House of Stewart who reigned in that country, was born on the 2nd of March 1316, and was the only child of Walter, the Stewart of Scotland, and his wife Marjory, daughter of King Robert Bruce, to whom he had been married the preceding year. All that is known of the House of Stewart previous to this date is, that a Walter, son of Alan, was Stewart or Dapifer of Scotland in the reigns of David I. and Malcolm IV.; that he was succeeded in that high office by his son Alan; this Alan by his son Walter; Walter by his son Alexander, who was one of the regents appointed during the minority of Alexander III, and who, in 1263, commanded the Scottish army at the battle of Largs; Alexander, by his son James, who was regent after the death of Alexander III., and died in 1309 at the age of sixty-six, and he, by his son Walter, the father of Robert II. This Walter was one of the commanders of the Scottish army at the battle of Bannockburn; and early in the following year, 1315, Bruce gave him in marriage his daughter and then only child Marjory, upon whom, provided she should marry with the consent of her father, or, after his death, with the consent of the majority of the community (or states) of the kingdom, the crown had been settled, failing the heirs male of her father and of his brother Edward, in a parliament held at Ayr on the 26th of April in that same year. Robert was the only issue of this marriage. Lord Hailes (Annals of Scotland,' vol. ii, Appendix i.) has sufficiently refuted the tradition that Marjory was killed by being thrown from her horse when big with child, and that Robert was brought into the world by the Cæsarean operation; but it appears that she died either in giving birth to the infant or soon after her delivery. Her husband died on the 9th of April 1326, after having had another son, Sir John Stewart of Railstone, by a second marriage with a sister of Graham of Abercorn.

Bruce was succeeded by his son David II., born of a second marriage, 5th of March 1324; and his unfortunate reign-marked by a long minority and a succession of regencies, during which the kingdom was overrun by Edward Balliol and his ally Edward III., and David was obliged to make his escape to France, and after that by the defeat of Neville's Cross, when David was taken prisoner by the English-fills up the interval from 1329 to 1371. Robert, the Stewart, acted a principal part throughout this reign, and was as much distinguished by his personal merits and conduct as by his high rank. While yet only a youth of sixteen, he commanded the second division of the Scottish army at the decisive battle of Halidon, fought, and lost by the Scots, 19th of July 1333; and after that fatal day he was one of the first to uplift again the standard of the national independence. In 1334, he and the Earl of Moray assumed the regency of the kingdom, and, although not formally invested with the government by any assembly of the states, were recognised by the people as entitled, in the infancy and exile of the king, to wield all the authority of the crown. Fordun's description of the Stewart at this time, as Lord Hailes translates the passage, is as follows:-"He was a comely youth, tall and robust, modest, liberal, gay, and courteous; and, for the innate sweetness of his disposition, generally beloved by truehearted Scotsmen." In a subsequent passage however he hints that his conduct as yet was not always regulated by absolute wisdom,"qui tunc non magna regebatur sapientia." On the Earl of Moray being taken prisoner by the English the following year, the Stewart, in concert with the Earl of Athol, concluded with Edward III., on the 18th of August 1335, the treaty of Perth, which was in fact a submission, though upon honourable conditions, to the English king.

After this we hear no more of the Stewart till 1338, when, upon the death of the regent, Sir Andrew Moray, we find him again appointed to that supreme office. His resumption of the government was soon followed by the expulsion of the English from all their strongholds to the north of the Forth, and his regency was terminated by the return of the king, on the 4th of May 1341. In 1346, after the capture of the king at the battle of Neville's Cross, where he commanded the left wing of the Scottish army, in conjunction with the Earl of March, the Stewart was again elected regent, or locum tenens serenissimi principis David,' &c., and he held this post till the release of David, in 1357, governing the country, it is affirmed, with remarkable prudence and ability in the difficult circumstances in which he was placed. In 1359 the earldom of Strathearn was conferred upon him by the king. When David, in 1363, astonished the nation by proposing to a parliament, held at Scone, that in the event of his dying without issue, Lionel, duke of Clarence, son of Edward III., should be chosen king, the Stewart, whose interests, as well as his patriotic prejudices, this project so nearly touched, was one of the foremost of those who adopted instant measures to defeat it. He entered into an association with the earls of March and Douglas, and with his own sons, and he even appears to have taken up arms with the avowed determination of driving the king from the throne, if he persisted in his purpose. David however found meaus, without making any formal concession, to put down this threatened resistance; and, upon a general amnesty being granted, the Stewart, on the 14th of May 1363, renewed his oath of fealty, and entered into a bond to abstain from all such confederacies in time coming, on pain of forfeiting for ever all right and title to the crown, as well as to his private inheritances. Soon after this David, who had lost his first wife, Joanna, a daughter of Edward II., in the preceding year, contracted a second marriage with Margaret Logan: but she also bore him no children; indeed he had separated from her some time before his death, which took place on the 22nd of February 1371.

Upon this event the states of the kingdom immediately assembled at Linlithgow; and after a slight opposition on the part of the Earl of Douglas, who conceived that he had himself a claim to the vacant diguity, as representing the families both of Comyn and Balliol, the Stewart was unanimously declared king, by the title of Robert II. He was crowned at Scone, on the 26th of March, and next day, according to custom, received the homage of the bishops and barons, seated on the moot-hill there.

Robert II., when he thus succeeded to the throne, was somewhat peculiarly situated in regard to his domestic relations; and the point demands particular notice, inasmuch as a controversy has thence arisen on the question of the legitimacy of the Stuarts, which continued to be agitated, both among antiquaries and political writers, down to the middle of the last century. His first wife was Elizabeth, daughter of Sir Adam Mure, of Rowallan; but the family he had by her, consisting of four sons and six daughters, had all been born before their marriage. In ordinary circumstances a subsequent marriage might probably, in Scotland, even at this early date, have legitimatised these children, at least in the eye of the Church, although their right of civil succession, and especially of succession to the crown, might not have been in that way so certainly established; but there was a very awkward speciality in the present case. Robert and Elizabeth Mure had been living not only in concubinage, but in what the Church considered incest, for they were related, it seems, in the fourth degree. Nay, to make matters worse, the Stewart, before his acquaintance with Elizabeth Mure, had been connected in the same way with Isabella Boutelier, who was related to her in the third degree; and this, according to the canonical doctrine, placed him in a relationship by affinity of the same, that is, of the third degree, to Elizabeth Mure. His marriage in any circumstances therefore with that lady, would have demanded a papal dispensation; but it was far from being universally admitted that even the authority of the pope could establish the legitimacy of children born in a connection which thus openly violated and set at defiance what was believed to be the divine law. It is obvious that a dispensation to persons within the prohibited degrees to marry is an exercise of prerogative on the part of the head of the Church much inferior to the legitimisation of the children already produced from an incestuous connection. So strongly in the present case does this appear to have been felt, that the pope's dispensation actually proceeds upon the monstrous supposition that Robert and his wife Elizabeth Mure, long as they had lived together, had been all the while ignorant of their relationship, and on that manifestly fictitious ground alone does his holiness profess to sanction their marriage, and to pronounce the legitimacy of their children. But the dispensation by no means satisfied the popular feeling of the time; and there is reason to believe that the supposed defect in the right of the reigning family materially contributed in exciting and sustaining some of the most formidable of the insurrectionary attempts which convulsed the Scottish kingdom in the course of the succeeding century. Robert, after the death of Elizabeth Mure, had married Euphemia Ross, a daughter of the Earl of Ross, by whom he had two more sons and four daughters, also all born when he came to the crown. Thus circumstanced, in 1871, immediately after his acces sion, he got the states to pass an act recognising John, earl of Carrick his eldest son by Elizabeth Mure, as his successor; and, still better to securo

the rights of his first family, he procured, in 1373, another act expressly entailing the crown upon his heirs male of both families, and after them upon his heirs whatsoever. It is obvious that, whatever might be the force of this parliamentary settlement in securing the crown to Robert's heirs male by the sons of Elizabeth Mure, who were named in it, as soon as such heirs failed, the question would legally arise, who were his heirs whatsoever, or general? and if the papal legitimisation of the first family should be set aside, then his heir whatsoever would have to be looked for among the descendants of one of his sons or daughters by Euphemia Ross. Now, it so happened that such was the case on the death of James V., leaving only a daughter, Mary, in 1542. At this moment the heir-general of Robert II., on the supposition of his family by Elizabeth Mure being illegitimate, was the Earl of Menteith, the lineal descendant of Euphemia Ross's eldest son, David earl of Strathearn; and it is a remarkable fact that in the early part of the 17th century the pretensions put forward on this ground by the then Earl of Meinteith, who was justice-general, and president of the Scottish privy council, occasioned no small uneasiness to Charles I., and brought down ruin upon himself. For the latest and also the most learned and acute discussion of this question, the reader is referred to Tracts, Legal and Historical, with other Antiquarian Matter, chiefly relative to Scotland,' by John Riddell, Esq., Advocate, Svo, Edinburgh, 1835; dissertation iii., entitled Remarks upon the Law of Legitimation per Subsequens Matrimonium, the Nature of our Antient Canons, and the Question of the Legitimacy of the Stewarts,' pp. 155-211.

A truce for fourteen years had been concluded with England two years before the death of the late king; and as long as Edward III. | lived, the two countries remained at peace. In 1377 however, immediately after the accession of Richard II., a war arose out of what appears to have been at first a private quarrel between the English garrison at Roxburgh and the Earl of March. Hostilities continued, with a few short interruptions, till November 1380, when a truce for twelve months was arranged, which was afterwards extended to the summer of 1383. In 1384 however, the war broke out again with more violence than ever, the Scots being now assisted by a body of French auxiliaries, who arrived in May 1385, under the command of Jean de Vienne, admiral of France. In the summer of that year, while the young English king led his army in person into the north, laying waste the country and burning every town and village he came to in his progress [RICHARD II.], a force of Scots and French, entering England by the western marches, ravaged Cumberland and laid siege to Carlisle, but withdrew when the enemy returned southwards, without having effected an entry into that town. Soon after this, the French, who had found the Scots and everything in Scotland very little to their mind, and had also made themselves greatly disliked by the people they came to assist, returned home, though not till they had agreed to pay the expense of their maintenance, and had been forced to leave their leader Vienne as a hostage for the performance of that engagement-a conclusion of the business which has drawn much obloquy upon the Scots, though there is little doubt that the real object of the French in this expedition was certainly much more to annoy the English than to benefit the Scots. A truce for another year followed the departure of the foreigners; but the fighting was renewed in 1387. That year the town of Carlingford in Ireland was plundered and burned by a force under the command of William Douglas, recently created Lord Nithsdale, and married to one of the king's daughters; and in 1388 the famous battle of Otterbourne, or Chevy Chace, was gained from the Percies, though at the expense of his own life, by the Earl of Douglas. [RICHARD II.] By this time however the reins of government had nearly dropped from the hands of king Robert. Froissart tells us that, being unfitted by his years and broken health for going out any more to war, he was no longer consulted in public affairs by the nobles, by whom and also by the nation in general the king's second surviving son, Robert, Earl of Fife (afterwards Duke of Albany), was now looked upon as the true ruler of the country. In 1389 the Earl of Fife was formally recognised as governor of the kingdom by an assembly of the estates held at Edinburgh. After this the old king appears to have lived almost entirely on his ancestral estate in Ayrshire, where indeed he had been much in the habit of secluding himself for some years previous. It was probably now, in his old age, that his originally engaging personal appearance was deformed by the breaking out of an inflammation in his eyelids, from which he derived his popular designation of Blear-eye. The fable about his birth makes him to have been wounded in one of his eyes by the surgeon who cut him from his mother's side.

The war with England was prosecuted by the regent for some months with considerable vigour; but before any action of importance had taken place, hostilities were terminated for the present, in June 1389, by a truce concluded between France and England for three years, in which the allies of both powers were comprehended. The country was therefore at peace when Robert II. died, after a short illness, at his castle of Dundonald in Kyle, on the 19th of April, 1390. Besides his six sons and ten daughters by his two wives, this first of the royal Stewarts had a numerous illegitimate progeny by various other women. His six lawfully begotten daughters married into the families of the Earl of March, Lyon of Glamis (now earls of Strath

more), Hay of Errol (now earls of Errol and earls of Kinnoul), Macdonald of the Isles, Douglas of Nithsdale, Lindsay of Glenesk, the Earl of Douglas, Keith earl Marischal, Logan, and Swinton. From six of his illegitimate sons the Stuarts of Bute, Cairney, and other families of that name deduce their descent. Robert II. was succeeded by his eldest son Robert III. ROBERT III., King of Scotland, the eldest son of Robert II., relinquished his original name of John on succeeding to the crown, on account, it is said, of a popular superstition of his countrymen which regarded that name as unlucky or ominous. But if so, it is rather strange that the heir apparent should have ever been so christened. He was known throughout the preceding reign by the title of the Earl of Carrick, a dignity which had been bestowed upon him by King David II. Before acquiring that dignity he appears to have been designated the Lord of Kyle. He was probably born before the year 1340, so that he was past fifty when he came to the throne, on the death of his father, in 1390. It is known that he had been married at least since the year 1357, to Annabella Drummond, a daughter of Sir John Drummond of Stobhall. He had been lamed in his youth by a kick from a horse; and this accident, combined with his mild and pacific disposition, of which perhaps it was in part the cause, made him be regarded, both before he became king and afterwards, with feelings of something very like contempt by the generality of his countrymen. The coronation of Robert III. took place at Scone on the 14th of August 1390. No events of any note mark the first eight or nine years of the reign, during the whole of which the king's brother, the Earl of Fife (who was in 1398 created Duke of Albany), continued to retain the management of public affairs, and even, according to some authorities, the title of governor or regent. [ROBERT II.] The truce which had been made with England in 1389, was kept up by various continuations throughout the reign of the English king Richard II. But war broke out again on the accession of Henry IV., in 1399; France, as usual, exciting the Scots to harass England by predatory expeditions across the borders, which could only end in drawing down signal vengeance on themselves. In August of the following year, accordingly, Henry entered Scotland at the head of a powerful army, and advanced as far as Edinburgh, which was however successfully defended by the king's eldest son, the Duke of Rothsay; and Henry returned home after having received the submission of various towns and villages through which he passed, but without having given the country cause to remember his visit further than by this mere demonstration of his power. In the following year however Henry Percy (Hotspur) made a more destructive inroad as far as to Preston in East Lothian. On this occasion Percy was joined by the Scottish Earl of March, who had recently thrown up his allegiance and gone over to the English king, in a fury of revenge provoked by the ill usage he held himself to have received from the Duke of Rothsay, who, after having been affianced to his daughter, had married a daughter of the Earl of Douglas. The following year, 1402, is memorable for the tragical catastrophe of Rothsay, who, at the instigation of his uncle Albany, the friend of March, was, on the pretence of restraining or punishing his dissoluteness, seized under an order professing to be signed by his father, and confined first in the castle of St. Andrews, and then in that of Falkland, where he is believed to have been left to perish of famine. He was only in his twenty-fourth year when he thus fell a victim, in all probability, to the dark ambition of his kinsman. A few weeks after the prince's death, a pardon or remission in very ample terms for any concern he might have had in this affair was granted by the king to Albany; and has been published by Lord Hailes in chapter vi. of his Remarks on the History of Scotland,' Edinburgh, 1772. In this remarkable paper it is stated that Albany admitted the capture and arrest of the prince, but justified what he had done by reasons which the king did not then hold it expedient to publish to the world. No express denial of the fact of the murder is ventured upon; it is merely recited that the prince departed this life in his prison at Falkland, through divine providence, and not otherwise"ubi ab hac luce, divina providentia, et non aliter, migrasse dignoscitur." "The reader," observes Hailes, "will determine as to the import of this phrase. If by it a natural death was intended, the circumlocution seems strange and affected." It ought to be added that Archibald, the young earl of Douglas, the brother-in-law of Rothsay, who had acted throughout the affair along with Albany, was equally charged by the voice of common fame with the murder, and was included in the same acquittal or indemnity. It is conjectured that Rothsay had made the proud baron his enemy by his infidelity to or neglect of his sister. This same year, on the 22nd of June, the Scots, commanded by Patrick Hepburn of Hales, were defeated with great loss, at West Nisbet in the Merse, by the English under the conduct of the Earl of Northumberland and the Earl of March; and on the 14th of September following the Earl of Douglas received a still more disastrous discomfiture from the Lord Henry Percy at Homildon Hill in Northumberland. When immediately after this the Percies rose in rebellion, the Duke of Albany put himself at the head of a numerous force, and set out for the south with the design of taking advantage of the embarrassing circumstances of the English king; but the news of Henry's victory at Shrewsbury turned him back before he had got across the border. In the course of the two following years several attempts were made